Requiem For a Mother's Love
by Alchemist Experiment
Summary: Homunculi have no souls, and therefor no emotions. Dante never once entertains the thought that this could be wrong, even when her faith is challenged by questions of the past. Spoilers for episode 44


-1_Disclaimer: Characters herein do not belong to me, I am making no money off of this._

**Requiem For a Mother's Love**

"So did you ever love me or what? I don't really care, I'm just curious."

The tone of the words was casual and light, suited to a question of the weather or perhaps late-made dinner plans. An offhand remark, let loose as though it had simply come to mind. But Dante knew better. One became attuned to these things after hundreds of years. A snake's slithering was casual but dangerous, as were Envy's words.

"If you don't care, then I don't need to answer."

"Why not? It doesn't matter, does it? So it doesn't matter if you tell me or not."

The paper beneath her pen was half full of alchemical symbols and notations, her hand moving to bring forth more as the homunculus spoke. She didn't look up at him, perhaps afraid of what she would see. Which face would it wear today? She found them all distasteful.

"I am busy."

"No, you're not." Envy wasn't leaving. No trace of casual tone was left, not glamour of offhandedness.

"Do you seek to make me angry?"

"No. But I want to know."

"Why? What is love, in this world? What value does it hold, what meaning? It is a weak and foolish thing created in the minds of humans and nothing more." What had brought this on? Hundreds of years had passed and Dante had begun to wonder if Envy even remembered his origins. He spoke not a word of what he had been, or anything that came before. Had he been holding it within, letting an old wound fester and never heal? But that was foolish. What he was didn't suffer wounds of the heart. Still…

"But you love _him_." The snake had struck, venom sunk deeply into the last word Envy spoke.

"You have things that need doing. Why are you not watching the boy?"

"The little brat can take care of himself for ten minutes. You love him. Or is it because you're a weak human?"

"Be delicate with your words, I could destroy you if I had a mind to." Finally Dante looked up. Envy stood as he always did, not man or woman but something perversely in between. It made her ill, the thing that he was. That he chose to be.

"Then answer me. I'll leave you alone if you answer me."

"Did I love you, was that the question?" Dante set aside her pen and fixed her dark eyes on the thing that stood before her. She chose her words carefully, picking them with great precision. It was almost a game. "I loved my son. You would not stand here before me if I did not."

"That's not an answer."

"But it is. Now leave me be."

"Do you love me now?" Flat, blank, words without emotion. Dante sighed, her weakening body responding to her upset.

"What?"

"Do you love me now? You're my mother twofold. You gave birth to me and then you _created_ me from your own flesh and blood, you both did. You gave me life not once but twice. You damned your soul to keep me. Does that mean anything to you?"

"No." Dante made no effort to soften the word, to make it gentle or less harsh. There was no need to. The creature felt he wished for truth, so be it. "You are not my son. You are a creature that I rose in place of my son. What you were holds no meaning now, for you or any of the others. Really now, I thought you were beyond all of this."

"No. You raised me. You made me into what I am. You're old and you're powerful but you're still human. Humans are sentimental. They cling to things that aren't real, they love things that are gone."

"And homunculi don't love or feel at all."

"How can you love _him_ and not me?" Petulant, whiny, a child who didn't understand why he was denied a toy. And then it came. Envy shifted, the sickening sound of flesh twisting to create something new. And _he_ stood where Envy had, but different. A parody, a mockery, a watered down copy, too young and soft. "I'm him, too! He made me along with you, twice over the same as you!"

"Enough." Dante lashed out, knocking Envy from his feet. She had made a mistake in keeping him around. Perhaps, once upon a time when first she laid eyes on the abomination that had been created she had felt a kinship. Wasn't it, in some way, her son? The same flesh and blood was there. But years had killed it, wiping away what traces of maternal affection she had once held for the homunculus. The flesh and blood was there, but not the soul. And now he was challenging her over it. "I knew I should have killed Lust the moment she began to think she felt anything. She got to you, didn't she? Her and those children."

"_You_," Envy hissed, his body returning to it's strange, androgynous shape. "Mooning and sighing over _him_ like he mattered. He left you. He doesn't care about you. _I _stayed, and you don't care. You don't even call me by my _name_…"

"I don't remember it." Cold and clipped and as heavy as a crypt door, the words fell. "You are being foolish and irrational. You have no soul or heart with which to feel these things you think you do. Now go and tend to the boy, before he gets bored and brings this place down around our heads."

Envy stood, hands clenched and eyes black with hatred. Let him hate her, she hardly cared. He couldn't really hate her, simply imitate the emotion as he imitated all else. He was good at that, too good. She knew he may well leave, but it didn't matter. She didn't need him as a tool or a substitute for her dead son. Children, she had learned over the years, were easy enough to come by. Another body would bring another child, a real child and not a weak imitation that wore human skin. Perhaps she'd kill Envy then, and be done with it. Put the poor creature out of it's misery. Or perhaps give him humanity against his will, and let him have a taste of the weakness and love he was so fond of going on about.

No, she decided. That would be too kind. She'd hate for him to think it was done out of motherly love.


End file.
